Head 'em up! Move 'em out!

I haven't done a "Around and about" roundup in a while. About time. First up: Alexandra's blunt presentation of (if I may paraphrase in some vernacular or whatever) There ain't no such thing as a Palestinian. Nah, she didn't say it that way. She has more class than that. But that's what the info she presents means, and it's bang on the money. Woody has a great pointer to a talk by Michael Crichton that's a must-read for folks who have to deal with eco-freak-fearmongerers. It's a straight, fact-based followup to State of Fear. Oh, and after you read the Crichton talk Woody links to, try this one, too. One of my favs. Crichton gets all cranked up on the topic "Environmentalism as Religion". Battling takes on the week's "big" article on the fate of Western Civilization by Mark Steyn: The Real Ugly American and Big Lizards (the discussion in comments there is nearly as good as the post itself). My take distilled to a (not at all accurate) one-sentence precís? Prophecy can tend to affect outcomes... if the prophet's words are headed. It's all over the place. Cruise around with a google on Mark Steyn and you'll probably pick up a bunch more. Sharia banking-for-Islamic-bigots-only at Michelle Malkin's. Yeh, there are other takes. All she does is report. You decide (I have). Look around yourself. If they can have their own fun-damn-mentalist banks, then I wanna see fun-damn-mentalist Bapticostal banks that can say, "No Dogs, Islamofascist murdering savage S.O.B.s or Lutherans allowed" and Pope-friendly banks that can say, "No pill-popping feministas, Dunkin' Bapticostals or Jean Fraud sKerrys allowed." heh A reminder: Windows users PATCH YOUR SYSTEMS. Maybe... Cos... *sigh* I really don't want this to become the "Windows Metafile Vulnerability Blog" but... hackers claim they have broken through the official Microsoft patch to the vulnerability. Plus ça change and all that. BTW no user interaction at all is required for the vulnerability exploit to be used to infect users. See the linked article. And see Rick Hellewell's take on protecting yourself. Personally, I backed off the M$ patch on Win2K machines (only). Disabled WMF viewing (by de-registering the dll that makes it possible) and applied the third party patch once linked at Steve Gibson's site (and alas, apparenttly no longer available). I don't need WMF functionality, so it's gone. YMMV. (One reason I cite Hellewell is cos he disagrees with the measures I took. It's a crapshoot.) Doing linkfests? Check out Linkfest Haven. G'wan, ya know you wanna. What can N.Z. Bear do to you, anyway? heh Haven't been to Rick Lee's place recently, have you? *tsk-tsk* Depriving yourself of some great eye candy. Or in some cases, nutritious produce blogging. Romeocat says it's time to hook Pat Robertson off the public stage. How loudly and enthusiastically can I agree? Click on over and appreciate the memories, music and musings of Kat's Keep the Coffee Coming. No. Not gonna link just one post, cos they're all worth your time. And I'll just bet I'm not the only one who can second most of Christine's New Year's Resolutions. Yep. Definitely a doable list (except for those movie and tea things--heh). Diane and Mel are going strong on their Bloggers Without Butts Week. Click on over to their blogs and drop 'em some notes of congrats and encouragement, willya? The Mary Hunter posts a picture of a typical DemoPol. heh. Pure evil. Well, there's a lot more, but I just had some utility I did NOT install chime at me from another computer letting me know "Time's Up! Get off your... " Awww, shuddup, already. Noted with all due decorum at TMH's Bacon Bits and Imagine Kitty Magazine (Helloooo Kitty!).